Found this (SueDonim posted it)
Generic Christmas letter:
Dear Friends
Well it seems Old Father Time has been playing tricks on us as usual,and suddenly Christmas is upon us once again and caught me completely
unawares!
Thank goodness for word processors I say, which mean that we can write one completely impersonal letter and send it to everyone, rather than
having to think of something different to say to each and every one of you.
Always the most tiresome of tasks, but duty decrees that I must make some sort of effort to acknowledge your existence at least once a year.
You've probably forgotten the name(s) of my child/children - have a look in your Christmas card, I've written them there - my arm's aching from writing the same bl**dy thing in 150 Christmas cards this year. I really must
do something about paring down my Christmas card list for next year.
Perhaps a house move, and I'll accidentally forget to let most of you know my new address.
Anyhow, back to the family news. XXXX (insert child's name) has now started at nursery/school/secondary school (delete as appropriate), XXXX (insert next child's name) is enjoying his/her swimming/ballet/horse riding
lessons and wants to take up the piano/the saxophone/soft drugs in the New Year.
XXXX (insert baby's name) has recently started
crawling/walking/climbing the furniture and his/her favourite game is emptying the washing
machine/pulling the cat's tail/eating poo, so as you can tell, there's always something
exciting going on in this household.
More family news: XXXX (insert extended family member) has had another baby. Did you ever meet her? Probably not, but it's just possible that
someone on my Christmas letter list met this person once, several years ago, and might
be vaguely interested. My cousin XXXX got married back in the summer, which
was a lovely family occasion (I'm struggling now to think of thing to write to fill up this page - does it show?) though sadly the next time we
all met up was at the funeral of Great Aunt XXXX, who died at the ripe old age of 85/96/108 back in October.
Well here's wishing you a Happy Christmas and all the best for 2001/2002/2003. Perhaps we should meet up at some point next year. However, you know as well as I do that I say that every year at this time, then do absolutely nothing about it, until suddenly it's Christmas again and
another year has past without our seeing one another. Still, I expect that like me, you're completely happy with that arrangement, after all,
being totally honest, we never really got on did we. I mean, if we had really hit it off, we would probably communicate a little more than just once a year.
Still, at least you know I'm thinking about you at this festive time.
Much love
XXXX
xxx